


Custody

by MaddieFrickenClark



Category: Fear the Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Zombie Apocalypse, Codependency, Drinking, Drunken fluff, F/M, FTWDFamilyVerseAU, I just wanted to write something, Maddie asks Travis about his custody arrangement, Maddie gets drunk, Maddie loves to swear, Smoking, but they love each other so much, ftwd au, mentions of abuse, post sex musings, psychologically damaged character, unhealthy relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2017-01-13
Packaged: 2018-09-17 07:53:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9312398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaddieFrickenClark/pseuds/MaddieFrickenClark
Summary: Post lovemaking, a rather drunk cigarette smoking Madison, questions Travis on the reasoning behind the unfair custody arrangement that he shares with his ex wife.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So I watched 'Mrs Doubtfire' the other day and, at the start of the movie, Robin Williams' character got a much better custody arrangement than Travis, so I decided to write a little something about why I think he didn't fight harder to gain custody of Chris. Also I needed to work on developing a nice dark past for Travis before season 3 airs.

Custody

“Wanna sip?”

Travis shrugged, and peered toward his girlfriend who was holding out a half empty bottle of Vodka. The woman, still naked from their escapades, glanced up at him with her large hazel eyes wide. Her thick blonde hair fell in careless waves around her face and her makeup was smeared messily. She leaned forward and pursed her lips before she inhaled a drag of a cigarette, which she had poised between some of her fingers.

She looked messy. That didn't surprise Travis, though, for she'd been a mess since he had first met her. She carried the faint aroma of cheap liquor and cigarette smoke, as well as a constant air of hopelessness. She may have looked like a disaster, nestled beneath a crumpled bed sheet and surrounded by a cloud of smoke, but she was beautiful, regardless. She looked exceptionally good for fifty one, so good, that the man decided, she could possibly even fool people into thinking she was late thirties. 

Then again, though, she was a frightening woman. Her expression was constantly stoic, her eyes dead, as though they had seen too much, and her mouth drawn into a tight line. He may have constantly tried to deny it to himself but deep down inside he knew the truth. He knew that he'd fallen for a sociopath, a damaged, screwed up woman who was incapable of finding redemption. Her past was shrouded in a dark cloud of mystery and he knew that she had blood on her hands. He knew that, despite her never actually confirming his suspicions, she was a killer. A woman like her could easily take a life and feel nothing, not even a shred of remorse, and that fact should have deterred him, should have scared him stiff, but it didn't. That was love, it made you fucking crazy.

He didn't drink much, usually only socially, which was the exact opposite to her. She was a high functioning alcoholic, the type of woman who could outdrink just about anyone, someone who had become so heavily reliant on the drink, that she couldn't go a day without it. Her water bottle was usually full of vodka and she'd drink it during sessions. She'd instruct impressionable young teenagers to steer clear of the bottle all while she'd be sipping stiff liquor. Ever the hypocrite, that was his girlfriend. She'd drink herself crazy, she'd drink herself blind, most nights, usually after she thought that he'd fallen asleep. Oblivious to the rest of the world, only aware of one thing - the goddamn bottle. It was times like this when her children feared her, Nick and Alicia had both recounted times when they had locked themselves in a bedroom to avoid their drunken mother. She knew that, in her drunken stupor, she’d hit them. She wasn't ever going to forgive herself for that, just the thought made her crave the liquor even more. 

She loved him alot but he knew that she'd always love the drink just a little more. He couldn't do anything about that, it was that sheer codependency that made them work.

“Alright, pass me the bottle.” 

He took the vodka by the neck and took a long sip, completely unphased by smearing of red lipstick that marred the bottle’s lip. Damn, he recoiled, his face crumbled in disgust, as the liquor burnt at his throat. 

“I'm already feeling tipsy,” he joked softly. “This is so strong.”

Madison rolled her eyes, “ever the lightweight,” she mocked. “You really need lessons in handling your drink.”

He poked her bare shoulder, stirringly, and smiled. “We’re not all seasoned professionals like you.”

She laughed, a somewhat irritating yet completely real sound, and shook her head before she paused. She glanced at him curiously, “why did you get such a godawful custody arrangement, babe?”

Now that wasn't what he expected her to ask. They didn't talk about him much, it was always about her. They discussed her demons, her scars, her problems. Those were enough to deal with, he saw that she was struggling on her own, he didn't need to add to the weight that she carried on her shoulders.

“Why do you ask?” 

He reached out with one of his chocolate brown hands and stroked the woman’s cheek.

“I dunno babe, I'm just wonderin’ how a man like yourself managed to score just about the worst goddamn custody hours known to man,” she queried, her southern accent strong, before she shrugged and adjusted her weight atop the mattress. “You're this fuckin’ amazin’ man who has this stable job and a house and is a goddamn good person, but you still only get to see your fricken son every third weekend. I'm this fuckin’ alcoholic, the most goddamn unstable woman I know and I get to see my babies every day. I don't fuckin’ deserve that, I don't deserve custody, I'm not a good mom, and they deserve a good mom.” She paused and sipped the Vodka before she took another drag, “you're a good father, Chris deserves you in his life so much more, there is no reason you shouldn't get to see him more often.” She leaned down and pulled another bottle out of her nightstand, “you need to tell me why you just let her have him.”

Travis didn't want to discuss this, he wasn't even sure how to discuss it. The English teacher turned to his partner, “I don't know, Angel. Liza and Chris, they always had this closeness and I couldn't take it away from them.” The relationship that he had shared with his ex had been totally different to the one that he now shared with Madison. In theory, life with Liza should have been a million times easier than the life he now shared with Maddie. Liza was stable, she was smart, caring, a good woman, and now she was studying to become a nurse. She wasn't an alcoholic, her body wasn't covered in scars from both a lifetime of abuse and self harm, she didn't smoke a pack a day or swear rampantly and, most importantly, she definitely wasn't a sociopath. That didn't matter though, he'd fallen for Maddie, there was no going back now. He no longer settled for conventional, for straightforward, for practical.

“I know that, but he needs his daddy too.” She paused and grabbed one of his hands with both of hers, “and you need your son.”

Should he tell her? They'd been together for about four year, had lived in the same house well over three and half and insisted that they not keep secrets. She hadn't been the only one drawn a nasty card in life, he'd had it pretty tough as well. “I had a rough time growing up and sometimes I still feel like that factor’s affecting me now…”

She cut him off, a look of concern crossed her face and she ran some thin fingers through his thick black curls. “What happened to you? I knew you'd seen some shit, just the way you look at me, that fearful puppy look, tells me that.” 

Travis shook his head. “My father, he wasn't a good man-”

“So, pardon my French, but I take it that means he was a fucking asshole?” She took a slow drag of her cigarette, pursed lips clasped around the orange end.

Another shake of the head. Boy, she sure had a way with words. “Yeah, something like that. He'd beat my mother, my brother and I…”

“You have a brother?”

“Technically, I do, but I haven't had anything to do with him in over twenty years. He was about nine years my senior and I never really liked him very much. He was my father’s favourite, he joined a gang, condoned violence and most definitely didn't study English lit.” The man paused and pulled his girlfriend even closer to his chest. He hadn't thought about his family in years, never once had he mentioned them to Liza, and none of his kids were ever to know. “He married a woman, she was lovely, but I knew that he hit her, I could see the bruises.”

Damn, Maddie knew that feeling all too well. All the bruises, scars and black eyes that she'd had to conceal, a good thirteen years as her husband's personal punching bag. “What about your mother?”

“I was at school, probably about eight years old at the time, and the principal came into my classroom to see me. She brought me to her office before she told me that there had been an accident and that my mother hadn't made it. I hadn't known the details for years, and I was around sixteen when I learnt that she'd done it to herself, that it hadn't been an intruder who had shot her in the head. I never liked guns, baby, but it was only then that I realized that I never wanted to even touch one ever again.”

He was crying by this point, his chocolate brown cheeks marred with tear streaks. She hated seeing him cry, it made her feel weak. She never cried, she was too broken to feel that type of pain. Slowly, she dragged her fingers over his left cheek, smearing the tears, and shook her head. “Shh,” she hushed him softly, “you didn't need to tell me, you didn't need to bring this up. I can't stand seein’ you cryin’ like this.” 

Gently, she wrapped an arm around his shoulder and pulled him against her. He nestled his face against her chest and she continued to shush him as she stroked his bare back. 

“I want to tell you these things, Angel. I'm sick of keeping them to myself, bundling them all up inside. I had to have been able to save her, there had to be something I could have done and instead I did absolutely nothing.”

“Trav, you were eight fricken years old, a fucking baby, you couldn't have done anything. No one expected you to do anything, it's not your job to save everyone, and that includes me. You can't protect me, Travis, you can't stop me from having another drink, or finishing this pack of cigarettes, and if I decided that I'd had enough, you couldn't stop me from popping one too many pills. You're not my fucking guardian angel, but I don't expect you to be. Your mom couldn't have expected it either, she was a grown woman, she made her own goddamn decisions.” 

His tears had subsided by now and he was just quietly snuffling to himself. “I let Liza have sole custody because I didn't trust myself, you'll doubt me, say I'm a good man, but what if one day I just snap? I snap and I become him, I become my father in the same way that my brother did. I don't trust myself to be a good dad, I'm not a good dad and I'm obviously not a good husband either.”

“Stop and listen to yourself for a moment. You're a not a good dad, you're the most fucking amazing dad I have ever seen. I know a bad father when I see one. My dad was bad, he was a misogynistic, narcissistic bastard who got off on touching his little girl in obscene ways or beating her until she bruised or bled. My children's dad was bad, just the way he'd hit me, their mommy, in front of them, cemented that reality. You're not bad, Travis because if you were bad you wouldn't have come into my life and accepted my family like they were your own, you wouldn't have loved my children regardless of them not being your biological kids, you wouldn't have helped my son fight a heroin addiction or treated my daughter in the same way that you treat your own son. You don't have a fucking drop of your father’s darkness in you, you're a goddamn sweetheart and I don't give a fuck if you trust yourself because I know for sure that I trust you.”

She was right, he supposed, at least in regard to the way that he saw her children. They were his kids too, no one would ever tell him otherwise. They might not have been accepting at first but, by now, they treated him how they would have treated their father. “You always know the right thing to say.”

Maddie let her lips curve into a small grin as she leaned back against the bed head. She looked like something out of a boudoir shoot, Travis decided, just the right amount of seductive and sultry paired with this effortless touch of class. Her bare breasts were exposed, giving the man full view of their large, bulging, rounded shape and her nipples, which stood in hardened peaks. A sheet was strewn messily over her lap and one of her legs stuck out from beneath it. He examined her the length of the limb, the subtle curve of her thigh. She had few tattoos scattered along her skin. They included his name in cursive on her back, a few quotes and sayings, her children's names, a small heart on her wrist and a large rose on her upper left thigh (she had gotten that done whilst drunk, when she was still a teenager). He didn't mind her tattoos, he had a couple himself, and he most definitely preferred them to the sea of scars that marred her flesh. 

“I think you should fight, I dunno, just take Liza back to the goddamn courts and try to get to see your boy just a little more often. He deserves to have his father’s input in his life and that fuckin’ selfish bitch shouldn't be able to take that right away from you.” The woman sipped the fresh bottle and tilted her head to the side. “I've got a hell of a lot of fucking problems but you don't. You deserve a chance to be a great father and I'll help you.” She paused and ignited her lighter before she lit up another cigarette, “want a smoke?”

The man didn't smoke, he never had liked the taste of cigarettes and he hadn't even been able to stand the smell until he'd met her. She smoked a lot, she knew that she was killing herself and when he had mentioned it she had just shaken her head and asked what made him think she wanted to live in the first place. Usually, Madison smoked beside the pool, and Travis would sit himself down on the pool edge beside her and pull her into his arms. He wasn't entirely sure why she was smoking in their bedroom at that given moment but he didn't question it, he just let her keep going.

He nodded eventually, what was it going to hurt? He'd already breathed in enough second hand smoke to ensure that one puff wasn't going to make a difference. He took the cigarette from her extended hand and clasped his lips down around the tube, further smearing the dark red lipstick marks his girlfriend had left. Travis inhaled, the taste of smoke rough against the back of his throat. He coughed and pulled the cigarette aside, “here, you can have it back.”

Maddie shrugged and suggestively took a drag, “more for me then, I suppose.” She paused, leaned her head back slightly, and looked him in the eyes. “You know Travis, I don't fucking want you goin’ around thinking that you're some shit father because you're definitely not. Chris deserves a father like you, hell, my own children deserve a father like you. I don't care what your dad did, you are not your dad, we can choose who we are. You saw what your dad was like and you decided that you didn't want to become like, you're not me. I became my fucking father, it was my biggest nightmare but in reality it was inevitable.” She stopped talking and gulped down another mouthful of liquid. Her words were growing more and more slurred and she appeared to be off balance. “You don't fucking know what it's like to be able to get drunk and hit your own child. To be physically capable of that, to wake up and see fucking bruises on your kid, bruises that you caused. You're not me, I can do that, I have done that. I know abuse, Travis, and you're not abusive, you don't have it in you.”

“I wish I could have been there for you, you didn't deserve to go through any of that.” He reached out and gently stroked her cheek, his hand travelling down to her exposed shoulder. “You deserve better.”

Another mouthful, “if anyone deserves better, it's you, you don't need a fucked up woman like me. We're not good for each other, you know that right?"

Travis shook his head slowly, and watched as she butted out her cigarette before she discarded it into an ashtray on her nightstand. He reached out slowly, his arms wide, and pulled her into his embrace. "I do know that, I know that, and it just makes me want you - love you - even more. Liza was a conventional choice, a nice stable choice, and after the break up I could have chosen anyone but I chose you. I could have settled for functional but instead I sought out the dysfunction I saw in you."

"You chose me because you're stupid."

 

The Maori man shrugged, his arm still squeezing her shoulders. "I chose you because I love you."


End file.
